The 3 most important immediate needs are water availability, water purity and food to feed the family. I am starting a business to be an authorized dealer for items that meet these needs – as a way to help out friends, neighbors who have not started preparing for immediate needs if the power goes off for more than a week. Hand pump on the well head, Water purifiers and a home freeze dryer which will pay for itself in a year or 2 based on the prices of freeze died foods. I really, really want to freeze dry my own highly nutritious food without preservatives instead of buying commercial freeze dried foods.

Time and time again I’ve seen families buy all of their wheat, then buy all of another item, and so on. Don’t do that. It’s important to keep well-balanced as you build your storage. Buy several items, rather than a large quantity of one item. If something happens and you have to live on your present storage, you’ll fare much better having a one-month supply of a variety of items than a year’s supply of two to three items.

30. Paper goods, plates, cups, utensils – In addition to the above, having a nice stock of paper plates, cups, and utensils will be extra convenient. Next time you see a super sale on these items at Costco’s or Sam’s try to shoot for a 1 month supply. These can always be used in a short-term crisis, as well as for the first month in a long term to eliminate washing while other critical things needs to be done.
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I love this article and absolutely agree with you. I wanted to know what advice you could give if something like the power grid goes down? The reason I ask is because of the importance of keeping food in a COOL, dry, place. I am currently stationed at Fort Rucker, AL. It is blazing hot here and I would be worried that if the power grid went down, all that work that I did to ensure we had enough food and water would be wasted due to the heat. I know there are circumstances that call for bugging in or out but with a wife and two young kids, bugging in would be my first option. I hope something like this never happens but it is better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Just hoping for some good advice on how to keep food and water from going bad even if keeping it cool is not an option. Thank you for your time and help!
Each of us has personal fears. It might be poor health. It might be a precarious job situation. There are a great number of individual calamities that can befall us, however, the fact that you have just been fired from your job, while I am concerned as I would be for anybody who has lost employment through no fault of his own, it doesn’t affect me. It doesn’t affect my neighborhood. It doesn’t affect the distribution of food and utilities.
Water is the source of life, and is an essential part of survival. In general, it is best to allot 1 gallon of water per person per day. This is including cooking, cleaning and drinking. Now, this is just an approximate amount since different locations and temperatures require different amounts of water. It would be a good idea to have enough water for each person in your family to last you at least 3 days. So, depending on your family size, it could be a lot. For a family of 4 people, it would be a minimum of 12 gallons of water for a 3-day supply.
I started to store a tin a week – sweetcorn, beans, tinned tomatoes – and, over time, added cases of pasta, bags of rice, boxes of long-life meat and bottles of water. Most people keep a few tins in their cupboard – soup and beans, things like that. That’s what I’ve got in mine. It’s just that I’ve got 70 of each, stored in a brick outhouse that my husband converted.
In an emergency situation, you will be doing some home cooking. You will need oil to get the job done and prepare a hot meal. Lard is long-lasting and high in calories. You can use it to add a bit of flavor to your food. You probably remember even today how good your grandmother’s cooking used to taste. Our grandparents used lard when cooking and a large can would last them for a long time. In case of emergency, you can even use it as a butter substitute and it will provide you with the calories you need to survive.
I know of another room which may have been thought of as a bunker…or maybe not. A couple built a house with a full basement and an attached two car garage which has a concrete slab floor. Under that slab is a ‘storage room’, entered from the basement, but it has a concrete wall between it and the rest of the basement, and a steel door which opens inward. Sound like a bunker?
Regarding the general category of water purification, you have essentially combined reverse osmosis with UV disinfection PLUS the necessity for solar and/or gas generated power. Take away the essential electrical power and you still have to boil your water. If you do the math, you could invest up to $2500 for your version of water purification. That’s a “big ticket” indeed. Once again, there are abundant information sources that provide instruction for long term water purification that cost far less.
Canned goods are some of the items that disappear first in a crisis. It is normal behavior because everyone wants to add meat to their diet. You should stock up in advance on cans of tuna, ham, and chicken. These canned goods are an excellent source of protein and they should never miss from a survival pantry. Even when you do some last minute shopping, chances are you will still be able to get your hands on a few cans of Spam. Make sure you also look for dried meats like beef jerky. These foods have a long shelf life and they will be a tasty addition to your survival pantry.

@Cycloneous: Learning any martial arts skill takes years. Too many dojos promote people in order to keep them coming back. Elvis Presley was supposed to hold black belt ratings in several different martial arts. I strongly suspect that if he were to engage in a match with even a first class brown belt in any of those disciplines he would have gotten his butt royally kicked.

115. Generator – Generators are great in emergency situations, especially if power is crucial for medical reasons. Long-term however there is debate at how viable generators can benefit as you will need a constant supply of fuel as well as fuel storage. Not to mention if the power has been down for months and would-be scavengers are rummaging the neighborhood when they hear the sound of a generator running?? If you do plan on getting one, look for tri-fuel generators.
2. Supplies for sanity: Just because the SHTF doesn’t mean we need to depend on the bare essentials and feed our family beans and rice every day. When the SHTF we are going to be stressed enough as it is so having some supplies like coffee and sweets will help take the edge off, at least until you become more accustomed to the new lifestyle that was forced upon you.
I was surprised to read an MRE review here. I’ve had my fair share of them as well. And for the record, if I was the first to the box, my favorite was Menu 3 Beef Ravioli in meat sauce. Not half bad. I never considered them an option for disaster preparedness though because they were always too bulky for what you got in them. Most of the time in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’d open them up, and stow the spoon and the main meal and toss the rest back in the box for others to pick over later. We… Read more »
And not everyone is rational. The prepping movement contains overzealous elements, particularly in the US, where natural disasters are bigger and badder and, well, the guns. But those signed up to the movement in the UK are like you and me: relatively normal, with the odd quirk. They just keep a half-tank of petrol in the car at all times, and at least a month’s worth of food, and an alternative way to heat their homes in winter if the gas goes down.
When things go bad, you will want to ensure your family has at least some regular comfort foods and that you can eat real, freshly prepared food for as long as possible. However, if you have no MREs or freeze dried food and you have to bug out and leave all your preps behind, you might have a hard time carrying a lot of canned goods with you. You will also want to avoid something called “food fatigue,” which is when a person gets so bored of eating the same food all the time that they don’t feel like eating that food, even if it’s the only thing they have, combined with the lack of nutritional variety in their food.
Basic First Aid and Trauma- You cannot count on EMT’s, paramedics, or doctors being able to render aid if you or someone in your group is injured. Take the time to learn CPR, basic wound care, trauma care for major lacerations and penetrating wounds, and how to manage hypo- and hyperthermia. All your nice medical gear you bought up above won’t help you if you cannot employ it correctly and safely.
When purchasing preps, some people choose to buy a few items at a time, often due to budgeting issues. However, some people can afford to buy everything at the same time. Whichever way you choose to do it, there are items you should focus on as your top priority. From our experience the following list includes the top purchases that anyone should make when they first start prepping.

Hello Ryan. My experience has been that the more that you can keep air (oxygen) away from your food the longer the shelf life. I like to seal packaged food into larger mylar bags with an oxygen packet, then I seal the bag. I store these mylar bags in a 5 gallon bucket with lid. Wal Mart has these buckets for sale that cost $2.97 and the lid is $1.12. I personally like having a few barriers between my food and mice, bugs…etc. Let us know what you decide to do!

We also have a Cobb Grill for cooking (charcoal). It's about the same as a new outdoor grill to replace the rusted out one and since it's designed for indoor storage and easy transport (it has a carrier bag), it should long outlast anything we would need to leave outside. SHTF or no, it's a good buy for us. Clearly, it is smaller than a full-size grill, but we don't need that anyhow.

All good questions and points. Shipping containers are definitely not a good option. They are typically made of 16 and 14 gauge corrugated steel (.065 and.075 inches respectively) and the amount of retrofitted fortification that would be required to withstand the weight/pressure of several feet of earth is considerable. The container would have to be buried fairly deep(as most steel shelters are) since it offers little protection, in and of itself, against radiation, heat or even small arms fire due to it’s light construction. Then of course there would be waterproofing required(although they are made to be exposed to weather,they… Read more »

I hope this makes sense to you. It sounds like you have already figured out that with a growing teen and two additional children in the household, this will be a good start but that more will be needed over time. By doubling these quantities my guess is that you will be better prepared, food wise, than 90% of the population. And even without doubling the quantities, you will be better prepared.

The irony of this didn’t escape me: While I’d been drawn to freeze-dried food as a convenient way of preparing for a cataclysm that may never come, there I was, toiling away for hours in the kitchen to prepare a dish I’d be eating that night and the next day. It was the most fortifying meal I’d eaten all week, and a minor achievement: Thanks to the premeasured portions and easy-to-follow instructions, I’d learned how to make a chicken pot pie from scratch.